Successful Orthotopic Liver Transplantation in Mice Utilizing Microcomputed Tomography Angiography

Transplantation is often the only effective therapy for end stage organ disease. To understand the complex mechanisms inherent to injury of in-liver transplantation, robust small animal transplant models have been developed to recapitulate the physiology and pathophysiology of allograft injury. Innovative strategies will need to be developed to deeply interrogate the mechanistic pathways involved in tissue injury observed in transplantation, and to expand the donor pool.

The use of mice to study transplantation is vital as it allows for the use of gene edited and transgenic mouse lines to study the role of specific molecular pathways on the pathophysiology of allograft injury. There are a number of technical challenges with mouse liver transplantation, including the small diameter of the vascular anastomosis and the subsequent risk of thrombosis leading to allograft failure. While many technologies such as ultrasound angiography have been employed, microcomputer tomography has advantages including the ability to attain high resolution images of the vascular anastomosis in the entire abdomen.

These studies can be performed longitudinally to evaluate vascular patency and profusion of the liver over time. There are many challenges to performing accurate and clear micro CT angiography studies in rodents. We have found the use of cardiac gating and the adjustment of isoflurane concentrations to decrease the respiratory rate produce the clearest images.

We have also found that utilizing rodent-specific contrast timing for specific phases has also improved visualization.